To my miraculous astonishment Maria returned alone, long before Josephine and her brother, and even without Anastase. He, it appeared, had gone to Paris to hear a new opera, and also to play at several places on the road. It was only five days after Christmas that she came and fetched me from my own room, where I was shut in practising, to her own home. When she appeared, rolled in furs, I was fain to suppose her another than herself, produced by the oldest of all old gentlemen for my edification, and I screamed aloud, for she had entered without knocking, or I had not heard her. She would not speak to me then and there, saving only to invite me, and on the road, which was lightened over with snow, she scarcely spoke more; but arrived on that floor I was so fond of, and screened by the winter hangings from the air, while the soft warmth of the stove bade all idea of winter make away, we sat down together upon the sofa to talk. I inquired why she had returned so soon. "Carl," she said, smoothing down her hair, and laying over my knees the furry cloak, "I am altering very much, I think, or else I have become a woman too suddenly. I don't care about these things any longer." "What things, Maria,--fur mantles, or hair so long that you can tread upon it?" "No, Carl. But I forget that I was not talking to you yesterday, nor yet the day before, nor for many days; and I have been dreaming more than ever since I saw you." "What about?" "Many unknown things,--chiefly how different everything is here from what it ought to be. Carl, I used to love Christmas and Easter and St. John's Day; now they are all like so many cast-off children's pictures. I can have no imagination, I am afraid, or else it is all drawn away somewhere else. Do you know, Carl, that I came away because I could not bear to stay with those creatures after Florimond was gone? Florimond is, like me, a dreamer too; and much as I used to wonder at his melancholy, it is just now quite clear to me that nothing else is worth while." "Anastase melancholy? Well, so he is, except when he is playing; but then I fancied that was because he is so abstracted, and so bound to music hand and foot, as well as heart and soul." "Very well, Carl, you are always right; but my melancholy, and such I believe his to be, is exquisite pleasure,--too fine a joy to breathe in, Carl. How people fume themselves about affairs that only last an hour, and music and joy are forever." "You have come back to music, Maria; if so, I am not sorry you went away." "I never left it, Carl, it left me; but now I know why,--it went to heaven to bring me a gift out of its eternal treasure, and I believe I have it. Carl, Carl! my fit of folly has served me in good stead." "You mean what we talked about before you went, before the Chevalier went also?"